1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for gaining the meat from the bodies of slaughtered poultry or parts thereof, as well as to an apparatus suitable for performing the process.
Great significance is attached to the treatment of the area around the wishbone or clavicle in gaining the meat from the bodies of slaughtered poultry, because it has, on the one hand, a significant influence on the yield obtainable and, on the other, on the need for trimming in order to obtain the desired quality. The clavicle is a fork-like tubular bone linking together the wing joints at the end of the coracoid bone. It is embedded in the breast meat, the top part of the clavicle being directed towards the crest of the breast bone or sternum, terminating upstream thereof and being fixed thereto by a sinew. Considerable problems exist particularly during the mechanical gaining of the meat in achieving the necessary detachment of the clavicle from the breast meat, which problems occur at least partly due to the fact that the clavicle is broken in a considerable number of the poultry bodies to be processed. The reasons for this lie in the preparatory operations. The clavicle can be broken or separated several times and at random points. It relatively frequently occurs that, due to the guidance of the cut when separating the wings or through the effect of force during this process, the clavicle is detached at the attachment point in the region of the wing joints or is broken in the vicinity thereof. While manual processing can adapt to these conditions, there is an inherent risk of fragments of the clavicle remaining in the fillet. However, a product of this quality cannot be accepted, particularly due to the risk of injury on the sharp fracture surfaces of said bone parts, and consequently requires trimming, which is costly from the standpoint of yield loss and time incurred.
2. Prior Art
From EP-A1-168 865, there is known a process for gaining the breast meat from poultry bodies, which is directed at solving the aforementioned problems. In this process, the head of the clavicle is removed from the skeleton before detaching the meat. For this purpose, the poultry bodies prepared as front halves are applied to a saddle moved by means of a conveyor and are initially supplied to a tool, which penetrates with a hook-like cutting punch through the leading neck opening into the clavicle while engaging over the clavicle head. The cutting punch is then drawn back out of the path of the saddle, so that the clavicle head seized by gripping engagement from behind is entrained and sheared from the two clavicle branches through introduction into a cavity. The clavicle branches remaining on the skeleton are then pushed by corresponding means into a favourable position for filleting and the breast meat is slid off.
In the case of a clavicle broken several times in the region of the wing joints, this apparatus does not make it possible to reliably prevent broken parts thereof from remaining in the fillet meat.
3. Objects of the Invention
It is therefore the main object of the present invention to propose a process which eliminates these disadvantages. It is a further object of the invention to make it possible through the use of such process to obtain the breast meat without trimming, at high yield and with optimal efficiency.